Barrhaven family to sell 25,000 comic books from garage for charity

The Barrhaven family of six has filled the space with 25,000 superhero-themed comics. Each book has been meticulously wrapped, priced and placed in boxes in time for their comic sale fundraiser for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) on June 7.

It’s an impressive collection for parents Rob and Isabelle and their home-schooled children Alexandre, 12, Dominic, 10, Jérémy, 8, and Jasmine, 6. Comic book collecting is a family hobby, but its also part of the way they educate the kids.

“We use comic books to really teach kids about life, and about finances and about debt,” said Rob, explaining how they search for Kijiji deals on comic collections, buy them in bulk for relatively cheap and maybe even watch the value shoot up.

Alexandre once bought the Incredible Hulk #271 from his dad for $2. Rocket Raccoon made his first appearance in that comic, so it’s now worth about $200 because that character will star in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie hitting theatres this summer.

“If the movie is good, (the value) will go up, but if it’s really bad, it might just plummet,” Alexandre said.

Late last year, Rob heard about a comic book shop that went bankrupt in New Hampshire, so he and Alexandre took out the seats in their Surburban and headed south. They came home with nearly 20,000 almost-mint condition copies from the 1980s onwards, including Batman, Superman and the Fantastic Four. When they heard about the Be a SuperHERO for CHEO fundraising campaign June 7-8, they decided to partner with the hospital and add some of their own comics to the sale.

The Lussiers’ garage fundraiser will be June 7 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 32 Mountain Ash Dr. The comics in the collection will sell for as little as $3 and as much as $40.

Fifty per cent of the proceeds will go to CHEO.

Holy comic books, Batman!

The bat signal will be lit up over the Lussier home during the sale.

Batman, himself, will be patrolling the event, speaking in a deep, raspy voice and pumping up the fundraising.